


Like A Zombie

by MadiYasha



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, loooooollll, wrote this to cope when i was like 16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-02 12:46:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10944789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadiYasha/pseuds/MadiYasha
Summary: Roxas was moody.





	Like A Zombie

Roxas was moody.

 

He cycled through different emotions like they were seasons.  Axel would ponder, often, if there really was a more fitting word than  _ emotions-- _ one that would make better sense in the context of a Nobody, but humanity so often beckoned from Roxas’ eyes that somehow, Axel didn’t feel all too wrong about using the phrase.

As the year rolled on, Axel would find himself counting on the boy more than he should have.  If something was wrong, his first instinct was to go to Roxas to assuage the troubling and oddly intense state his conscience was in. Again, he felt it a lot more easy to just say  _ the pain and anxiety in my fucking heart _ but common sense seemed to block it out.  These were memories of former days, clearly, the stress and all those emotions beneath the umbrella were just that--memories long passed, aching to be remembered.

His boots would tap down on the marble surface of the castle late at night, and he’d always find himself outside number XIII’s door.  At first he worried about waking the younger boy up, but he soon learned that Roxas had just as much trouble sleeping as he did.  He would never really need to explain exactly what was bothering him--sometimes, it just helped to hear Roxas’s voice.  A late night conversation was enough to give both of them the comfort they needed to survive another day.

There were days, however, when Roxas stayed silent.  Or he ignored Axel completely, giving him a cold shoulder and maybe one or two words, at best.  He’d run off and talk to Xion or Demyx or  _ anyone _ else, and it left Axel in a state of uncharacteristic paranoia.  He didn’t realize at what point, exactly, he’d grown so dependant on the kid--and he tried his best to mask it.  There was always some cringing fear in the back of his head that he’d done something to upset the kid; as if he’d said something wrong, or came on too strong, or maybe that his lies of omission had caught up to him.

...and a few days later, they’d be back to normal as if nothing ever happened.  It upset Axel because he was so used to reading people, but Roxas proved more and more of a puzzle every day.  What’s worse was that Roxas was the first person Axel didn’t want to peer into for malicious reasons--he was genuinely, irrevocably interested in the kid.

Roxas was moody, and him and all his dumb humanesque  _ feelings _ were starting to run Axel ragged.  That anxiety continued to pool in the pit of his heart (or lack thereof) and he grew tired of the nights he had to lose sleep over a kid he hadn’t even known for a year.  It wasn’t like him to be so co-dependant, and even less like him to let it be a bother like this.  He’d lie awake, the walls white and stifling and the night black as ever, rain pattering down outside his window.  He’d roll flames along his fingers until his room was smoky and he grew bored of even that.  Anything to fill the empty space, really.  But in the end, he’d always end up back at an alabaster door with an embossed ‘XIII’ on it.

Sometimes there’d be a warm smile and an insightful conversation, and sometimes there’d be clouded over blue eyes that screamed  _ what do you want _ .  But all of those things were better than the silence that so often followed his knocking.  

God, there was nothing that shook Axel’s spirit more than silence.

Roxas was moody, but Axel had a photographic memory like no other.  And he learned, whenever Roxas was being difficult and indecisive--to take himself back to the first time they met, and remember the silence.  The redhead shuddered whenever he remembered how quiet and emotionless the boy was.  If he felt so discouraged back then, when they hardly knew each other--he couldn’t dare imagine how horrible it’d be if Roxas ever reverted to that state now, when he meant so much to him.

Axel let a relieved sigh escape his lips, and he lowered his closed fist from Roxas’s door.   “Hey, buddy, you awake?  Probably not, just wanted to let you know I’m here, and...” He swallowed the lump in his throat.  “Whenever you wanna talk to me, I’ll be waiting.  All right.  Night, partner.”

There weren’t any words, but Axel could hear his best friend make a little huff of comfort.  He settled for it--anything, anything was better than silence.

The man knew that he wasn’t going to get much sleep that night, but he found himself grateful for having someone like Roxas in his life.  

  
  


Roxas was moody, but Axel was glad he had life in him at all.


End file.
